


The Way Out

by SophiaCatherine



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Self-Harm, Trauma Recovery, mick doesn't do feelings, the team support each other in their own messed-up ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 04:42:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15162911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/pseuds/SophiaCatherine
Summary: 5 times Mick Rory couldn't accept help, and once when someone else accepted his.





	The Way Out

**Author's Note:**

> Please read content warnings. Mick, as we all know, does not have healthy coping mechanisms. (More detailed warnings in end notes.)
> 
> Title comes from [this joke](http://a4theroad.blogspot.com/2004/06/west-wing-man-falls-into-hole-story.html), from The West Wing, 2x10, in which a man falls into a hole and no one's attempts at help are useful, until: "And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

_1\. Len_

Mick’s not stupid. Plenty of people think he is. He doesn’t usually see the point in setting them straight. Being underestimated can be useful. But, still—Len should know better.

He doesn’t.

Mick knows his lighters have been disappearing. Len, hypervigilant and counting all the seconds, thinks Mick’s a slob who won’t notice.

Like Mick doesn’t know where he keeps every last lighter. He lives and breathes fire—literally, during those three months in the circus—and he _always_ knows where his next spark is coming from. So, yeah, he knows he’s down three lighters.

The silver one with the antique case, from the back of a cupboard. Gone. (That one was his father’s. Not that Mick needs any keepsakes from that bastard. But still, family heirlooms, and all. Mick had nabbed that one from his da’s dresser drawer, one day when the old man was in a particularly foul mood. He’d slipped out of the house, taken the lighter down to the barn and set fire to everything he could find. The barn had almost gone up in smoke and he’d got the short end of his father’s temper. The lighter was still in his pocket when he came back to the house, long after his father had gone back ahead of him. He kept it, mostly to piss off the old man.)

The yellow Bic from under his pillow, bought on a road trip they took to Starling one day. Gone. (Lenny had been at his wits’ end with Lewis, shaking with cold rage. He’d shoved Mick into a stolen car and said “Drive.” They’d stopped at a gas station and Mick had seen the lighter on the counter. And, well, he only knew one way to help what Len was seething with. He took the lighter, then took Lenny down to the edge of the creek. They set light to all the trash and logs and fallen branches they could carry down there. Lenny watched the fire, and Mick watched him. And even if it hadn’t quite done the calming thing for Len that it did for Mick, it had done something. He was doing better when they got back in the car. The lighter stayed in Mick’s pocket.)

And the cheap little black one with the dented case, from under the floorboards. Gone. (That rankles a bit. Lenny stole that for him in juvie. Mick had been curled up on the corner of his bunk one day, shivering and folded in on himself. Lenny hadn’t said a word, had practically fled the room—but eventually, when Mick raised his head from his arms, there’d been a little black lighter next to him. One of those disposable ones that cost more to refill than just throwing them out and buying a new one. Its wheel clicked and clicked without catching light, most of the time. Mick didn’t let it out of his sight for weeks afterwards.)

He knows why Len’s doing this.

And, right—because Len’s so fucking healthy. The guy who has panic attacks if you look at him wrong, never mind touching him. The guy who can knock down three men twice his size, but never hits first. The guy who obsesses over every detail of a heist for months because God forbid any scenario put anyone he cares about at risk.

Mick can handle it. He’s always handled it. On his own.

(Who’d give enough of a fuck about him to help, anyway?)

So they’re in the makeshift kitchen, hastily put together in the corner of the current crumbling safe house, when Mick finally braves the topic. Playing with the knobs of the gas stove, he doesn’t look in Len’s direction. “You been stealing my lighters?” 

From the corner of his eye, he sees Len sizing him up, over on the tattered sofa. “You have a problem, _Mick_. Can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“I’m handling it.”

Len’s head snaps up, and he turns a wide-eyed stare on him. “That so?”

“Yeah.”

Len advances on Mick, like no one would ever get away with doing to Len. A finger in the air; defence in the guise of offence.

“Mick, you have a tendency to get distracted. Sometimes very distracted.”

Oh good, there’s a speech coming.

“One of these days you might not be able to get your head back in the game. And then where will we be, hmm?”

Sure, Mick thinks. _That’s_ the problem.

Len sighs. “Talk to me.”

“No,” he says, and walks away while he still can.

 

_2\. Amaya_

Walking into the training room that morning, he finds it occupied by one terrifying triple black belt taking out her obvious fury on a punching bag. He swallows down a nervous reaction. “I can come back later.”

“It’s fine,” she says, when she gets her breath back. She smiles a strained-around-the-edges smile. “You want to join me?”

He shrugs. “Was mostly looking for somewhere quiet. Haircut won’t shut up. Something about magnetic resonance imaging and the pieces of the Spear.”

She grabs two of the bottles of water in the corner and passes him one, dropping down to sit against the wall.

Something about the way she’s looking at him, kinder than he deserves, unsettles something inside. He sits down next to her anyway.

She very calmly nods at where his sleeve is riding up, giving away the secret of fresh burns on top of old scars. “You doing better?”

He shrugs. They’ve had half-conversations about this before. They’ve taken to spending quiet time together, recently. Sitting in the cargo bay, usually, him doing whatever he’s doing—drinking, eating, watching the miserable excuses for flames that Gideon’s willing to let him have on board. Amaya talking, listening. She's dragged more truths out of him than he would have guessed he’d want to tell her.

“When did it start?” she asks, picking up a conversation that was fine before. It isn’t now, but Mick doesn’t say so. There’s something in her face that he doesn’t understand, and he looks away.

_—he’s been playing too loudly with his brothers, and his father gets up from his chair, and Mick doesn’t run fast enough. And later he goes outside and pulls out his stolen lighter, staring at the flame for a long, long time, sparking the lighter until the metal is hot, tracing the hot metal along his skin—_

“When I was a kid,” he murmurs, and gets a sudden urge to take out his lighter. Just to disappear into the flame for a while. He doesn’t.

She means well, but he’s done this so many times before, all the _questions_ , over and over. He’s stopped listening, clenching everything tight against the noise. “Do you know why?” filters through.

“No,” he says, the noise becoming a roar in his ears. He makes his apologies and gets out of there.

 

_3\. Ray_

He means it, when he tells Pretty he doesn’t need it anymore. Means it right then and there, anyway.

But it’s only a few months later and the world falls apart again. Axl was—important.

“Oh. Sorry,” Haircut says, as he walks into the med bay where Mick is occupying a chair, without so much as a 'mind if I come in’.

His eyes widen at the sight of the mess along Mick’s side.

“Mick…” he starts, and cuts off.

Mick doesn’t meet his eye. “I’m fine,” he says, a reflex. Of course Haircut thinks this is something to _talk_ about. Bullshit funeral wasn’t enough feelings for him already.

Ray moves closer. “Did something happen?”

“Fuck off,” Mick says. He still doesn’t look up, because Ray’s face is going to be all kinds of things that he just fucking _can’t_ right now.

Ray ignores him and moves towards the chair.

Mick resists the extremely strong urge to hit him.

“You told Nate you were going to stop,” he says. Quiet. Disappointed.

Mick explodes. He surges out of the chair, looming over Ray, who doesn’t even have the good sense to back away. “Can’t fucking move on this ship for someone spilling your secrets to someone else, can you? And no, that’s not what I told him. What do you care, anyway?” he finishes, trailing off into a mumble.

There’s a long silence, in which neither of them moves.

“Do you want to talk?” Ray asks, eventually.

Mick takes a step back. “No,” he says. Then he walks out.

 

_4\. Gideon_

“Mr Rory,” comes the distinctive voice of a meddling AI, and he freezes. He comes back to himself in his chair, holding his lighter. _Shit._

“Yeah, Gideon.”

“May I suggest that you visit the med bay?” Her tone is gentler than usual.

“I’m good,” he says, slurring a little. He pulls his gloves back on.

After a moment’s silence, she says, “Would you allow me to give you a health check here?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” he insists, but his hands are clammy and his heart’s going like a revving motorcycle. He doesn’t want to look at his skin. “I do any damage?” he asks her quietly.

“Not as far as I could see, but I would ideally like to look at you in the med—”

“I said no thanks, Gideon,” he interrupts, but he doesn’t snap at her. Sighing, he adds, “What, was I just staring at my lighter?”

“I believe so,” comes back her even timbre. “How are you feeling?”

He considers this. “Like hell,” he admits eventually. “Nothing serious, though. Gideon, can you...”

“Yes, Mr Rory?”

He lets his head settle back against the chair, staring at the ceiling. His skin itches beneath his clothes, suddenly sharp and rough. “Dangerous time,” he says. “Keep talking.”

There’s a brief pause before she says, “What would you like me to talk about, Mr Rory?”

He wraps his arms around himself. “Anything. What’s the crew doing? Anything.”

She works through the list in her cheerful jangle. Usually it irritates him, but he sinks into the familiarity. “Mr West and Ms Tomaz are in the engine room undertaking routine maintenance. Ms Jiwe is in the training room. Dr Palmer and Dr Heywood are playing darts in the lab. Captain Lance is currently marching down to the lab to tell them that a game of darts does not mix with dangerous equipment and to ‘knock it the hell off before she knocks them out,’ apparently.”

He laughs, warmth filling his belly where he had been empty.

Silence, again, and he finds himself sliding down to the floor, lying flat on his back under the harsh lighting that makes him even more twitchy. But he closes his eyes for a moment, and his nerve endings eventually stop doing the fizzing thing.

“Mr Rory,” Gideon says again, a few minutes later.

“Yeah?”

“There is no one in the galley. Would you like me to fabricate some ingredients for you? As I recall, you were considering cooking steak for the crew.”

He smiles, slowly pulling himself up to his feet. He flexes his hands, breathes. “Sounds good.”

As he moves towards the door she says, “You can come to the med bay anytime, Mr Rory.”

“No,” he says, but patiently.

_  
_

_5\. Len, again_

The fire is is snapping and crackling, out in the yard in front of the warehouse. Mick’s been slumped against a crate in front of it for a long time, letting his arm drift much too close to the fire, pulling it back, again and again. He doesn’t expect the sudden shadow that appears on his right.

Len sits down, dropping the box he’s holding and pulling out a pink fucking marshmallow.

Mick drags himself up to look at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Roasting a marshmallow, _Mick,”_ he says, like it’s obvious. He gestures down at the chocolate and crackers in the box.

Mick’s eyebrows creep up. “You’re making s'mores.”

“Clearly.” Len doesn’t break a smile, but his eyes are twinkling.

Mick leans back against the crate, wincing slightly as his sleeve moves against his arm. “You jackass.”

Len’s nod is solemn. “Never claimed otherwise.” He slides a beer in front of Mick.

“Not a word,” Mick warns. Len stares at the fire, nodding.

There’s silence for an almost pleasant minute or so. Then the asshole, who could never keep his damn mouth shut, just has to poke at it. “You okay?”

He shrugs.

“What do you need?”

“You to shut up,” Mick growls. Len nods again. Thinking maybe he’s finally got the message, Mick lets his head fall to his raised knees.

Len’s silent hand on his back is steadying, the bedrock still fallen out of the world.

After a couple of minutes he turns his head sideways to eyeball his partner. The bastard is crunching loudly on a cracker sandwich. Mick sighs and fishes a marshmallow out of the box. He slams it onto the end of a stick and holds it above the fire, suppressing the tremor in his hand. “I hate you,” he comments. 

“Good. Eat your marshmallow.”

“No,” he says, handing it to his partner.

 

_+1 Sara_

“We need another bathroom,” he grumps, passing Sara in the corridor.

She doesn’t reply, or look at him. He takes in her ashen face and sunken eyes, and his eyes drop to where she’s holding a thick piece of bandage against her arm. He feels his forehead wrinkle.

“Captain,” he tries again.

She stops and turns back, barely glancing at him. “Yeah?”

He nods at her arm. “If you’re hurt, you should get Gideon to take a look.”

Her shudder is one last signal that hoists the red flag in his head.

“Sara,” he says so gently he surprises himself. He takes a step towards her, hands raised a little. “D’you want help?”

She drops her eyes and shakes her head.

He takes a breath. Pulling up the side of his shirt, he briefly shows her a bare patch of skin. There’s no mistaking the recent cigarette burns for anything else.

“...Oh.”

“C’mon,” he says, shepherding her back into the bathroom. The person he’s most afraid of on the ship doesn’t flinch, doesn’t fight him, and his stomach roils.

She’s silent as he cleans her up. He’s not going to make her confirm his suspicions—but then she says, “Flashbacks,” quickly, like she thinks she has to explain herself. She sneaks a look at him, biting her lip.

He just nods.

When he’s finished, she slides down the wall, sits with her back against a cabinet. “I could use a drink,” she mutters.

“Maybe have a breather first.” His joints creak as he joins her on the floor.

She cocks her head at him. “Mick Rory offering sensible drinking advice?”

With a snort he says, “Stranger things have happened on this ship.”

“Not often,” she replies with a half-smile that he takes as a good sign.

He looks askance at her, trying not to make her feel like a lab rat. “You good?”

She kicks the side of a toilet stall and grimaces. “Don’t know.” Looking back at him, warily but not too warily, she says, “You... get like this?”

He nods slowly, playing with the edge of a towel where it’s fallen on the floor.

“Doesn’t happen much, anymore,” she says in answer to the question he didn’t ask. The color’s coming back into her face.

“You ever need anything, you can bang on my door,” he says. Hearing the edge of hesitancy in his voice, he rushes on. “Guess you’d rather hit up anyone else on this ship first, but...”

She hits him playfully on the arm—he still feels it. “Would not.”

He raises an eyebrow at her, only to find that she’s gone back to staring into space. Softly, he taps her shoulder. “Come on, Boss. You wanna see what fresh ingredients we got in? I can rustle you up something better than Gideon’s swill.”

She blinks and nods. “Bottle of whiskey, too?”

 _“Glass_ of whiskey,” he says firmly, rolling his eyes and offering her a hand.

She lets him help her up, still shaky but already looking more like her spirited self. “Pot, kettle.”

He shoves her out the door, grumbling about not exactly being anyone’s poster child for mental health coping strategies. It’s good to hear her laugh. “You want dessert? I got the stuff for cheesecake.”

She smiles. “Yes,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: Self harm referenced and obliquely described - not graphic. Lots of unhealthy coping mechanisms and avoidance. Dissociation. Mentions of PTSD symptoms.
> 
> Disclaimer: As usual, my own experience of this topic is only one person's experience, and others will have different experiences and headcanons.
> 
> Many thanks to [jessicamiriamdrew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/works), [wonderingtheblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_wonderer/pseuds/wonderingtheblue) and [Tobyaudax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobyaudax/pseuds/Tobyaudax/works) for reading this over for me. Wouldn't have put it up without your encouraging comments. <3
> 
> I love comments and always reply - but please be nice - I'm nervous about this one.


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